An Evening with Mother

From childhood, Mother has always been incredibly busy. In the past, she juggled teaching tens of children to raise money to support my father through his doctorate, then me and my sisters through high school and college, all while ministering full time at the church. Now, when her failing sight and hearing have made it difficult for her to work anymore, she is pursuing a master’s in theology while continuing her ministry (preaching sermons, counseling church members, providing Bible study for hours one on one).

I am often saddened at how demanding her life has been, and how rare it is to be able to spend any time alone with Mother, but somehow, even as her business leaves little time for relaxation, she manages to make me and my sisters always feel loved. She has no time for walks, parks, or pleasures, but if one of us comes crying or falls ill, she is the first to rush to our side. Even when she is hard at work at church, and I can see how anxious and frazzled she is, when our eyes meet, she smiles wearily and tenderly with an affection that makes itself felt, and reminds me that the core of her heart remains with us.

As such, it was lovely to be able to steal a few hours away from a Monday evening to eat out with her for the first time in a long while. J had given me a Shinsegae department store gift card as a present, so we had a little room to splurge. Among Italian, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine, Mother wanted to eat Korean, so that is where we headed.

Unfortunately, the only Korean restaurant in the department store was nowhere near the quality we had hoped for. The restaurant was apparently known for its dried yellow corvina aged in barley, but the fish was hard and briny, its flesh falling off in salt-calcified flakes; the banchan was equally limp and unimpressive. Mother made a face: “I could have cooked a better meal than this at home!” she complained, and I sighed and wholeheartedly agreed; Mother’s Korean cooking was always delicious. Still, even poking at the wilted spinach and curdled tendrils of bean sprouts was fun when we could lean in conspiratorially and exchange our dissatisfaction in whispered giggles.

The atmosphere of the restaurant was no better. The pots and pans were exposed in a scattered manner, we could hear the clatter and clang of plates being washed from the kitchen, and the table was vaguely sticky. Behind us, a man was yelling loudly at his three-year-old daughter.

“Sit! How many times do I have to tell you, sit still!”

Mother raised her eyebrows coolly in his direction. “Save the lessons for home, not public places,” she whispered dryly. I stifled a laugh.

“Eat what’s in front of you properly—eat it! I’m getting really angry now! What did you say? Yuck? I’ll show you yuck—”

It was not the most appetizing background ambience in which to chip away at our tasteless fish.

After the meal, we shared an egg tart and a cup of coffee, and as we still had some money left, Mother suggested going around the department store and buying something nice for me to keep. I highly doubted we would find anything affordable for our remaining 50,000 won (about forty dollars), but we looped our arms together and explored the department store—slowly, so that Mother’s eyes wouldn’t hurt. As we passed by a panel of modern art, I asked Mother teasingly, “Are these paintings to your taste?” and she retorted immediately: “Those splatters?! What a waste of a wall.”

At first, Mother was excited at a sign advertising “40% season off,” and hurried into the shop, but of course, when she checked the first coat on the sale rack, it was still over a thousand dollars. I lifted a pair of plain black mittens, and was astonished to find it was around two hundred and fifty dollars. We exchanged looks and burst out laughing, then said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We hurried down to the basement, which was where they sold food, tea, and snacks—the only part of the department store that seemed affordable to us. As soon as we entered, I said, “Oh, now I can breathe more easily,” and Mother said, “Yes, this is the place for us commoners,” and we both giggled.

That is one of the other odd things about growing up under Mother. Somehow, even when we were getting by on used clothes, leftover food, and public rations, Mother always kept her chin high and her pride intact, and I never felt our poverty to be degrading. Of course, perhaps just being able to make this remark is a sign of my privilege—there are levels of poverty, and I daresay ours was much more bearable than others. Yet this was something my friends also remarked on in puzzlement during high school, when I declared calmly that I could not afford certain supplies or extracurricular activities, and made it no secret that I was one of the only students in our year who would need full financial aid to go to college.

“How are you not…embarrassed?” a boy asked me once, in a tone of mixed consternation and admiration. Embarrassed? Of what? I thought, amused and a little confused. Of my Mother, who had never really rested a day in her life? Who drove up to my high school’s parent meetings at fancy hotels and high-end Gangnam cafes in her work clothes and the run-down motorcycle she used to drive from house to house to teach students, and made all the tastefully dressed mothers in their brand-name jackets and department-store skirts gasp in delighted surprise?

Because of Mother’s indelible diligence and dignity, I came to associate our poverty with grace under pressure and the intangible joys we gleaned amid suffering. Poverty meant us three girls and Mother all sharing one blanket spread out in a small room, but when we cuddled together it just meant we were all the cozier. Poverty meant walking through a department store knowing we couldn’t afford anything on display, but still finding pleasure in making jokes under our breath and basking in each other’s presence.

Even now, I admire the dedication, art, and thought that goes into different brands, but I think I would find them uncomfortable to wear—or to wear well. When the wearer does not exude a similar atmosphere to the brand itself, the look feels tacky, mismatched, trying too hard. “Like a pearl necklace on a pig,” Mother would say tartly.

Whereas…of course I may be biased, but even in her secondhand clothes and small figure, I always look at Mother and feel gut-punched by her beauty. Even now, she carries herself with such quiet, self-possessed grace, and her lovely face and clear childlike eyes have such conviction of her own strength and self-respect, she commands an attention that cannot be bought by jewels or brand-name tags alone.

In the basement, we found a pot of English tea leaves for forty dollars; Mother loves a good cup of tea dearly, so I bought her the tea leaves, and she hugged the tiny box to her chest, saying, “I’ll drink from this for the rest of the year.”

When we exited the department store, the night was bitterly cold. Mother took a blanket out of her motorcycle and wrapped it around my skirt, saying, “You’ll freeze in this weather without this.” She also tried to take off her scarf and gloves and give them to me, but I refused in horror, for I knew she felt the cold far more than I did. Still, she was worried about me. As we rode home on her motorcycle, she asked every few minutes, “Isn’t it cold? Are you okay?” And every time I hugged her and said, “Yes. Being next to you is enough to keep me warm.”

We leapt from topic to topic—one of the things I love about Mother is how easily conversation comes to us, and how deeply we probe into each other in just a short time. I asked Mother why, for all her devotion to serving the community and doing what was right, God pushed her so hard, while I had received so many blessings despite being so much less deserving. She responded with her characteristic unflinching and almost ferocious honesty:

“That’s because I was too tough. From all my brothers and sisters, I took after my abusive, alcoholic father the most. My mother was soft, but under all his violence, my father was tough and hard to the core. As I told you before, when Jesus appeared in his dream before he died and kept beckoning for him to follow Jesus to heaven, my father dug in his heels and clenched his teeth and refused so hard that his whole mouth ached the next morning from how hard he clenched his jaw to resist. I’m made of the same type of toughness. You, you’re not tough like that: if I even look at you with some hardness, the tears already start falling from your eyes. So there is no need for you to be broken. But me? I’m a block of iron, the kind that needs to be beaten to obey. So God put me through the fire…”

The cars whirled past us in a blur of light and color. As always when talking with Mother, I felt love and a deep sorrow surge up in my heart and constrict my throat, a love so big I could drown myself in it. Yes, Mother had gone through fire, and emerged with her heart and gentleness intact, grown more beautiful and kinder still for her suffering. And yet, as her daughter, how many were the times I had wished her suffering less.

“Until just a few years ago, I thought you girls had been raised well because I did a good job,” she said, stopping at a traffic light. “I attributed your success to my efforts and cleverness. Well, that’s not true. I’ve come to realize that everything good that came from my parenting has come from God’s grace. And everything bad you went through was due to my mistakes.”

“Oh, Mother. You’re being humble—you who tried so hard and did so much! You were a wonderful mother.” I touched her shoulder.

“No, I’m not saying this lightly. I’ve thought about this a lot. Listen carefully to me, because one day, when you have children, it would be best if you follow this advice: pray for wisdom and guidance, the kind that no one can teach you in books or advice, and listen closely for what God wants. Don’t try to force your own will or purpose on your children, because every time I tried that, it hurt you and things went wrong. God gave you to me, so He knew best how to raise you. Remember everything I did as a mother that helped you and made you happy, and do that with your children; as for all the mistakes I made, think of them as my mistakes, and take care not to repeat them. In this way, you will be a far better mother than I ever was…”

Again, I felt that same rush of gratitude at Mother’s deeply humble wisdom, and grief at the great pain she had endured for such spiritual wealth. I had no confidence that I would be able to replicate any of the gifts she had given me so wholeheartedly. But I was glad that she was my mother, and very glad that she was still alive and by my side, to learn from and love and cherish even now.

In the cold night, we sped along, the lights on her motorcycle streaking through the streets like the tail end of a shooting star. A small, fierce dot of fire, weaving its long way home.